


digging for a dead man

by emrosebr



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Internal Conflict, Male Friendship, Monologue, PTSD, Pain, Post-War, Reflection, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 03:17:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emrosebr/pseuds/emrosebr
Summary: " Tommy is in there, somewhere. My Tommy. Buried deep under earth and shovels.He’s in there, and someone’s got to dig him out. "- in which freddie thorne attempts to save his friend.





	digging for a dead man

**Author's Note:**

> in which freddie thorne attempts to save his friend. 
> 
>  
> 
> (may potentially develop into a several-part story focusing on the relationship between freddie and tommy, and tommy shelby's attempted salvation)

It has become a challenge to look at the King of Small Heath without some lingering resentment. Part of me wonders if he’s just the same; if he resents himself too, like we have all come to resent the ‘Tommy Shelby’ we know. That phantom name that silences bustling pubs and beguiles law-abiding men into committing acts of treachery and blood.

Tommy’s name has become a ‘house-hold name’ in only the most terrifying of ways; the mothers of Birmingham teach their children to fear the ‘Peaky Blinders’, in their tailored suits and razor-lined caps. Men have learned not to fight it; The Peaky Blinders take what they want, when they want. Give Thomas Shelby and his brothers your car, or he’ll take your life instead.

_My suits are on the house, or the house burns down._

I find it hard to remember it now, but I loved that Tommy Shelby once. The Tommy Shelby I knew. Not like a bird loves a lad; like a brother - Thomas Shelby and Freddie Thorne were brothers, we were the hoodlum’s of Small Heath when we were younger. From hoodlums to fine young men. From young men to soldiers.

Tommy Shelby was a fine young man once, a man with a heart and a beautiful mind, not just some villain in a suit. He had a head for politics and right and wrong, he rode horses, he read books, he laughed. We laughed a lot, he and I.

But war changes men, and Tommy Shelby’s proof of this. Though he won’t admit it. Maybe he can’t.

The tunnels changed us soldiers for worse, but even then, some of us have turned it around. I know I did. Still dream about it, can’t shake it some nights, but I’ve turned it around. Ada’s helped me turn it around. I turned all that pain into fighting for something I loved; fighting for a different cause, no longer for the rich man and his wallet. I fight for my people, but Tommy fights only for himself and his family. They’re his people. They’re his only people.

In fact, It’s like he doesn’t see the world as ‘people’ anymore. It’s just him verses ‘it’. Enemies everywhere, lining the streets of his hometown.

The Tommy I know now is a scarred version of his former self - it’s my friend, my Tommy, still, but only in pieces. Tommy came back in pieces, but maybe unlike some of us, he was put back together wrong. Some of him was lost. Some of him they left in the tunnels.

It has become a challenge to look at Tommy Shelby, the King of Small Heath, without some lingering resentment. Resentment and pain. Resentment and longing: I miss him, like I’m sure we all do. Like his brothers do, like Polly does, like I know Ada does.

Tommy is in there, somewhere. My Tommy. Buried deep under earth and shovels.

He’s in there, and someone’s got to dig him out.


End file.
